Would a simulated world need such sophistication?
From Alain Williams, Watford, Hertfordshire, UK
Astronomer Royal for Scotland Catherine Heymans has been considering the question of whether we are living in a sophisticated simulation (26 September, p 40). If that is the case, then why did the simulator make physics so complicated?
The subatomic standard model has equations that are notoriously hard to solve, for example. The more complex the rules of our universe are, the more computing power is needed to run the program. It also raises the question: what is the purpose of the simulation? “Set up a scenario and see how it evolves” seems to me to be a good guess. Wouldn’t simpler rules of physics allow the same questions to be asked?
If we aren’t in a simulation, then the need to be fast and efficient isn’t a requirement.
There could be another way to improve lung function
From Mike Bradberry, Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia
Your article on laughter therapy and its potential benefits for people with chronic lung disease prompted me to write in. I have been playing blues harmonica for about 40 years. This difficult instrument happens to be the only one that requires the player to make notes by both breathing out and drawing in. Some of these notes need to be bent in order to produce sharps and flats, and therefore considerable effort is required (12 September, p 12).
On more than one occasion, I have been informed how much good comes from the exercises regarding improvements in lung function. So, perhaps there is more than one way to get these benefits.
Pink noise may benefit those with Alzheimer’s
From Bruce Denness, Niton, Isle of Wight, UK
Carissa Wong reports research showing that pink noise, akin to gentle radio static, helps flush waste products from the brain while we sleep. One wonders whether the subconscious link could be similar to that behind the sound of trickling water triggering the urge to urinate (19 September, p 8).
Could it be that pink noise might help clear beta-amyloid plaques and tau tangles from the brains of people with Alzheimer’s, and not only when they are asleep?
For more on how the brain clears waste, see here
We should absorb one key lesson from Star Trek
From Bryn Glover, Kirkby Malzeard, North Yorkshire, UK
I was pleased to be reminded of the advent of Star Trek, 60 years ago. One feature of the franchise not mentioned by Bethan Ackerley, but noticed by me from the beginning, was the lack of money or any other exchangeable tokens in their future societies. The only exception (as far as I recall) were the Ferengi, who were generally portrayed as rather shifty (12 September, p 28).
As for all the rest, their infrastructures provided them with everything they needed, and often everything they desired, in return for which everyone was expected to contribute their best efforts towards common purposes. In other words: ““
Pharmacies lend wellness fads undue legitimacy
From Peter Bickerton, King’s Lynn, Norfolk, UK
In Grace Wade’s fantastic interview with Xand van Tulleken, he says “vitamin supplements don’t work for healthy people”. I have long shared this suspicion, although fortified cereals have had notable success in reducing vitamin deficiencies, so we must assume the baseline, in the UK at least, is that people are often unhealthy (19 September, p 36).
I wonder if a similar sentiment also applies to the vast array of anti-ageing moisturisers and their innumerable counterparts that litter the shelves of pharmacies. These places, where people go to pick up medical prescriptions, can lend legitimacy to potentially harmful wellness fads, as well as homeopathic treatments not backed by science, in some cases.
Now that, in the UK, we are told that pharmacies are to become our primary healthcare option in many instances, they will take on an even greater aura of healthfulness.
Nuclear reactor needs more safety measures
From Sam Edge, Ringwood, Hampshire, UK
It is reckless hubris to think that small modular nuclear reactors, like the one proposed in Parsons, Kansas, won’t need containment beyond what is provided by burying it a mile underground, whatever improvements in safety technology are made. Every single nuclear incident and spill, including Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, occurred in facilities that the owners and regulators had declared were safe (12 September, p 17).
Stuffing a reactor without traditional radiation shielding down a borehole is also arrogant. As experiments with fracking have shown, the subsurface is a deeply interconnected structure. A seismic event or technical mistake could destroy the borehole and open up fissures, allowing radioisotopes to escape.
Many perspectives on time’s place in reality
From Julian Higman, Wantage, Oxfordshire, UK
Physicists are debating whether time is two-dimensional, not one-dimensional as long assumed. But I feel time is a tool we use to understand physics, not an aspect of reality, fundamental or otherwise (19 September, p 28).
We have rulers for making sense of space, whether infinite or just a small portion, and time does the same function for motion. Both rulers and time are constructs we made up. Rulers are easy to understand because they are physical things; time is harder because the connection with physicality is less obvious.
From Sophie Gillet, Ann Arbor, Michigan, US
I am fully in sympathy with the proposal that there are two dimensions of time. On the other hand (or possibly the same one), ancient philosophers postulated that there is ordinary day-to-day time, which we experience as continuous change, but also eternity, where everything “happens” or “is” at once.
From Mark Cargill, Alcester, Warwickshire, UK
I was finally getting my head around the weirdness of quantum theory, when along comes Itzhak Bars and his two dimensions of time, upending our ideas about relativity and gravity. I’m getting too old for this.
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